Description

Climb past a small roof and continue up the wall on edges and pockets

Location

South of The Grocery Store Walls is a large block that is detached from the wall. This block has two old bolts on top of the north side. Stratego climbs the right-hand margin of the east-facing side of this block. It is a fun and pumpy top rope problem.

Protection

So, what you are saying is that after previewing the route on rappel you decided to add a bolt to an existing TR (while on rappel, I suppose) and thus produce a synthetic runout lead. Your "ethics" sound pretty lame. If you were "proficient" at the grade, why not just go ground up with hooks for pro?

Also, love the photo. Complete with tick marks and a note showing just how high that first bolt is. Heroic.

Having put up a bunch of routes in Castlewood with Hanson and Anderson, I would just comment that the rock quality is questionable in most of the canyon.

I have seen pockets actually pulled out (which is bizarre to witness) and cobbles fall off without provocation. While we always enjoyed climbing there, we sometimes jokingly called it the "Chosswood Empire".

"I rapped in and checked out this route the other day to find a beautiful climb albeit very dirty. I cleaned it up with a brush and a nut tool, removing lots of loose rock and sand, revealing good rock below. I was interested in leading this climb for the first time (it has only been TR'ed). I have climbed in CWC for years and like the adventury feel of sparse pro and lack of trusty bolts but found no way to climb this route without soloing it. I chose to add a single bolt to protect the 5.12b crux at about the 25-30 ft level to allow someone who is proficient at the grade to climb a wonderful route. Normally a route like this would require 5-6 bolts, but due to my ethics of placing as few bolts as possible, I chose to only place that which is required. Anchors were placed at the top as well because no crack or tree are available without significant restrictions. I hope that climbers enjoy a new/ rediscovered route in the "Wood"."

This is Douchebaggery on numerous levels.

First and foremost: BOLT BAN!!!!!!

The CWC locals have been working efforts on several levels to re-gain some new route opportunity. Tod Anderson spent tons of hours a few years ago to simply obtain permission to replace 20+ year-old anchors; not to mention the actual work and $ involved. I personally have 7-8 year old permit applications in the works at this very wall. You cannot imagine the roadblocks I have had to overcome along the way.

Bullshit, artificial, R-rated route rap-drilled in the name of "ethics". This is nothing more than a pathetic ego-blast that impresses no one. If you are going to endanger climbing access altogether in the park, you could at least make it a real route.

Poaching one of Tom's top rope FAs w/out asking. He is easily contacted. If it weren't for him, you'd have far less opportunity in that canyon.

Slim said it well about our opinion of your heroism.

Please abstain from any further stunts like this.

Rich: Et tu? You know as well as any of us that once one of us "exfoliators" works a line, any loose crap there is has snapped off. Wendell Spire needed more cleaning than most, but even then it really wasn't all that bad.

The Park has a zero-tolerance policy on bolting at the moment. No committees, no permits, nada. The new administration won't even bother returning my queries. The previous one under Jen Marten at least would hear us out. But it took pointing out that life-safety was at stake just to get extremely limited permission to replace anchors on 2 of the oldest walls; and even then Tod probably spent about 20 hours navigating the forms. We might try again this Winter, but the effort seems greater than the reward.

While I agree that my observation is interesting, I don't agree that it is meaningless. A person attempting to onsight the route in the future, given the protection that you felt was adequate (while headpointing, which by the way I wouldn't even call this headpointing given the bolt placement) will be at a distinct disadvantage.

When you rapped in and decided to place the bolt, you also chose to not be bold. Insisting that the folks in the future be held to your "style" is BS. When you decide to place bolts on rappel, the "ethical" thing to do would be to place the protection such that when future parties do it "ground up" they aren't at a contrived disadvantage.